Politics
Italian experts highlight Türkiye remains important partner for EU
Italian experts said Türkiye remains an important partner for Europe in areas ranging from diplomacy to defense, arguing that Ankara should be viewed as part of the solution rather than a source of instability for the European Union.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA) on the sidelines of a conference in Rome on Türkiye-Italy relations and their EU dimension, Stefano Braghiroli, an associate professor at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and Andrea Locatelli, a professor at Milan’s Catholic University, assessed Türkiye’s role in Europe and recent remarks by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Braghiroli said Türkiye’s participation in NATO’s Steadfast Dart 26 exercise and its presence in the Baltics were viewed positively from a security perspective.
Referring to von der Leyen’s comments, Braghiroli said they were “certainly not wise words.”
He underlined that Türkiye has a different status from China and Russia because it is both an EU candidate country and a partner of the bloc.
“Russia today is literally trying to dismantle the EU,” Braghiroli said. “I do not want to use the term ‘enemy,’ but it is a rival and perhaps the most important opposing actor for the EU.”
He noted China is not an opponent but is also “certainly not a partner,” describing it as an actor that must be managed.
“As for Türkiye, despite all bilateral problems, which of course must be addressed and managed, I think Türkiye is not part of the problem but part of the solution,” he said.
Locatelli said Europe is going through a difficult period and that greater military cooperation is needed not only among European states but also with other countries in response to threats and challenges from outside the continent.
He said Italy’s cooperation with Japan and the United Kingdom on a sixth-generation fighter jet project demonstrated this approach.
Cooperation with Türkiye, particularly in the development of unmanned aerial vehicle technologies through the partnership between Baykar and Leonardo, is also a key element, Locatelli said.
“I think every effort in this direction is a step in the right direction,” he said. “Undermining these initiatives would certainly not be useful.”
Türkiye and Italy have enjoyed a positive momentum in bilateral ties in recent years, which was particularly demonstrated in closer defense cooperation as the Turkish drone giant Baykar launched a joint venture with Leonardo last year.
Italy, with a 4.5% share in Türkiye’s total exports, stood as the fourth largest export destination for Ankara in 2025.
Speaking last month at an event marking the 80th anniversary of German newspaper Die Zeit in Hamburg, von der Leyen said the EU should complete the European continent so that it does not fall under “Russian, Turkish or Chinese influence.”
Authorities detained an Eyüpsultan deputy mayor and two municipal officials on Wednesday as part of an expanding corruption investigation centered on the opposition-run Çankaya Municipality in the Turkish capital, prosecutors said.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said Eyüpsultan Deputy Mayor Hasan Karabulut, Eyüpsultan Municipality Chief of Staff Güray Geçyatan and Benan Esengül were taken into custody in connection with the investigation.
The latest detentions follow a July 11 operation targeting the Republican People’s Party (CHP)-run Çankaya Municipality in Ankara. Çankaya Mayor Hüseyin Can Güner was among dozens of suspects detained during the operation.
A court later ordered the arrest of Güner and 23 other suspects pending trial, and Türkiye’s Interior Ministry subsequently suspended Güner from office.
Prosecutors are investigating Güner and a total of 35 suspects on allegations including establishing and membership in a criminal organization, bribery and bid-rigging in public tenders.
The prosecutor’s office announced the investigation remains ongoing.
Güner, 32, graduated from Ankara University’s Faculty of Law in 2015 and joined the CHP in 2012. He served in various party positions before being elected mayor of Çankaya in the March 2024 local elections. He was also elected to the CHP’s Party Assembly in 2023.
Dozens of mayors and municipal bureaucrats from the CHP were detained or arrested in the past two years in investigations focusing on corruption. The majority of allegations involve bribery in return of construction permits, which are otherwise subject to strict regulations, and rigging the lucrative tenders of municipalities.
Turkish authorities detained 355 irregular migrants and 25 suspected migrant smugglers during nationwide inspections across all 81 provinces, the Interior Ministry announced Wednesday, as the government continued its crackdown on irregular migration and human smuggling networks.
The ministry said the operation involved identity checks on 427,968 people and inspections at 14,142 locations, including abandoned buildings, public venues, transportation terminals and other sites believed to be used by migrant smugglers.
According to the ministry, the operation was coordinated by the Directorate of Migration Management, the National Police’s Anti-Migrant Smuggling and Border Gates Department, the Gendarmerie’s Anti-Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking Department and the Coast Guard Command.
More than 26,000 personnel, supported by 8,785 teams, carried out inspections at 5,400 operational points. Authorities said 3,795 abandoned buildings, 7,447 public venues, 449 transportation terminals and 2,451 additional locations were searched.
The ministry said three of the 25 suspected migrant smugglers detained were foreign nationals. Procedures to deport the 355 irregular migrants have been initiated, it added.
Separately in an operation carried out in Istanbul on the same day, the police detained 39 irregular migrants and four suspected migrant smugglers.
Police said officers from Istanbul’s Anti-Migrant Smuggling and Border Gates Division stopped two vehicles in the Fatih district after receiving information that they were transporting irregular migrants. Two suspects and nine migrants were detained, while officers also seized an inflatable boat believed to have been used in smuggling activities.
Investigators later identified three so-called “shock houses” safe houses allegedly used to shelter migrants before onward transportation in the Fatih and Bahçelievler districts. Simultaneous raids at the locations resulted in the detention of two additional suspects and 30 irregular migrants.
The migrants were transferred to the Provincial Directorate of Migration Management for processing, while judicial procedures against the four suspects remain ongoing.
Türkiye’s Justice Ministry announced on Monday the establishment of specialized terrorism investigation units within provincial prosecutors’ offices across the country in an effort to improve coordination, consistency and efficiency in terrorism-related investigations.
According to a directive prepared on the instructions of Justice Minister Akın Gürlek and signed by Deputy Justice Minister Can Tuncay, dedicated Terror Crimes Investigation Bureaus will be established within provincial chief public prosecutors’ offices. The directive was sent to 175 chief public prosecutors’ offices with heavy penal court jurisdiction in all 81 provinces.
Under the new system, prosecutors assigned to the bureaus will handle only terrorism-related cases and will not be assigned other prosecutorial duties, including court appearances, on-call shifts or unrelated investigations.
The directive said terrorism offenses directly affect public security, social order, the constitutional system and the country’s territorial integrity, emphasizing that investigations should be conducted promptly, carefully and in accordance with existing legislation.
All terrorism-related investigations will be carried out through the newly established bureaus. District prosecutors’ offices will be permitted to conduct urgent investigative procedures only upon instruction from the relevant provincial prosecutor’s office, after which case files must be transferred without delay.
The measure is an administrative directive governing the internal division of work within prosecutors’ offices rather than a legislative amendment.
Specialized terrorism investigation bureaus already operate in major courthouses, including those in Ankara, Istanbul, Diyarbakır and Van. The new directive expands that model to all chief public prosecutors’ offices with heavy penal court jurisdiction across Türkiye and requires prosecutors assigned to those bureaus to work exclusively on terrorism-related cases.
The Justice Ministry also ordered the creation of a monthly coordination mechanism between prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. Meetings, coordinated by the ministry’s General Directorate of Criminal Affairs, will bring together officials from the Interior Ministry’s police and gendarmerie counterterrorism departments to review ongoing investigations, developments involving terrorist organizations and operational priorities.
The ministry said monthly nationwide statistics on terrorism investigations will also be compiled and shared with relevant security institutions before the coordination meetings to support intelligence sharing and policy planning.
Turkish authorities said the measures are designed to strengthen institutional coordination among prosecutors’ offices and improve the effectiveness of terrorism investigations.
Opposition lawmaker Özgür Özel on Tuesday delivered what he described as his final address from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) parliamentary group, announcing his new political party as he formally signaled his departure from the country’s main opposition party. His exit marks a new era in the opposition, which is probably the most fragmented ever in the brief history of the Republic of Türkiye. It comes about two months after Özel was ousted from the chairmanship of CHP by a court verdict that reinstated his predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to the top post in Türkiye’s oldest party.
Opening his speech (apparently his last as the parliamentary group chair of the party) with an emotional farewell, Özel told lawmakers he had taken the podium “with the sadness of a farewell whose time has come,” describing the moment as “a historic crossroads” for both himself and Turkish politics. Özel counts on CHP’s success in the 2024 municipal elections to finally bring CHP to power after successive defeats to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
Addressing supporters, Özel said the newly formed party would emerge as the country’s main opposition party by a wide margin, among the slogans “Istiklal (Independence)” by a fervent audience, the rumored name of his new party. For weeks, he and his supporters were touting opinion polls reportedly showing his camp within the CHP ahead, long before he vaguely implied a new party. Retaining the position of main opposition party will require more than three dozen lawmakers, and although several CHP lawmakers openly sided with Özel, none has formally resigned from the CHP so far.
Reflecting on developments within the CHP since November 2023, Özel remarked that the events of the past several years would occupy an important place in Türkiye’s political history. He argued that while political victories and defeats would eventually become part of the historical record, the conduct of political actors during the period would also be remembered.
“When everything is over, we will not forget,” Özel warned. “No one should think that the attitudes, actions or conspiracies of today will simply be forgotten with time.” He was referring to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who accepted the job as the party’s chair, amid protests of pro-Özel members of the party who branded him a “traitor.”
Around the same time Özel was announcing his resignation, Kılıçdaroğlu was visiting Rüzgarlı (Windy) Street of Ankara, a hub of shops selling construction materials. Earlier, he convened around a breakfast table at a cooperative of shopkeepers, hearing their economic complaints, strictly distancing himself from Özel’s agenda. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who spent the past two days in Istanbul at his residence, also had no scheduled events, fitting with his earlier comments on CHP’s divide, which he branded as a strictly internal matter of the opposition.
Path to new party
Özel said the split within the CHP stemmed from disagreements over the party’s future following its declining public support.
He said some within the party argued for maintaining the current course and focusing on the next local elections, while others warned that the CHP risked losing voters unless it embraced change.
Reiterating the current situation of the main opposition: “People will not go into another local election with us if we continue like this. If we act this way, they will turn their backs on us. Voter turnout will fall to a historic low. Don’t you see the polls? The party has dropped to around 13% or 14% and continues to decline,” Özel criticized, “A major defeat is coming. After another local election disaster, people will lose hope in the ballot box altogether. We have to act.'”
Özel said that disagreement marked the point at which party members “went their separate ways,” adding that he continued to value those who later joined his push for change as much as those who supported it from the outset. The Özel camp was fighting for a petition to hold a new congress in the CHP, assured that Özel would win the next intraparty election against Kılıçdaroğlu.
Challenge to Kılıçdaroğlu
In one of the most notable moments of his speech, Özel challenged CHP Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, saying the party’s leadership should be decided directly by members.
“Let’s put a ballot box in front of the delegates from either congress, or before all 2 million party members, and let them decide who should lead the party,” Özel said. “If I receive less than 90% support, I will consider it a vote of no confidence and step aside. Are you willing to do the same?”
Özel described the launch of his new party as “opening a new path” after a court ruling declaring the previous CHP congress legally null and void, saying the decision to leave was “not a choice, but a necessity.”
He said 61 days had passed since the court’s ruling and accused party leaders of believing public criticism would quickly subside.
“We can either remain trapped in this deadlock and disappoint the people, or we can untie these knots one by one and clear the way for the country,” Özel said.
He added that throughout his years as CHP deputy parliamentary group chair and parliamentary group leader, he had defended the party’s legacy and values, and had fought through legal, political and public channels to protect them before concluding that a new political path had become unavoidable.
The “terror-free Türkiye” initiative for the disarmament of the PKK terrorist group took a new turn this week as Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş began visiting political parties to hold talks on a framework law to speed up the process.
The law is expected to reduce the sentences of PKK members who surrender to authorities.
Kurtulmuş on Tuesday met Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli. Government ally Bahçeli is the architect of the initiative, which informally began with his call to PKK jailed ringleader Abdullah Öcalan.
In 2024, Bahçeli urged Öcalan to convince the PKK to lay down its arms. Öcalan complied and made the call in February 2025. Soon, the PKK itself announced its dissolution.
Turkish security forces, however, have yet to confirm the group’s full disarmament, an essential component of the initiative. The Turkish Parliament is at the heart of the initiative and awaits confirmation of disarmament before proceeding with drafting the framework law. Turkish intelligence is tasked with monitoring the process abroad. The PKK’s senior cadres are holed up in northern Iraq, and apart from a ceremony in which the group’s members burned their weapons, there have been no signs of disarmament so far.
The parliament speaker’s next stop was the parliamentary offices of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). The DEM Party is known for its close links to the PKK, and its lawmakers served as informal envoys between Öcalan and Parliament, relaying his messages on the initiative to the public. A DEM Party delegation visited Öcalan in the island prison where he is held near Istanbul on Monday and released his message to the public hours before Kurtulmuş’s visit to the DEM Party on Tuesday.
In his message, Öcalan said they were on the eve of “creating the legal ground for the Kurdish-Turkish alliance.” “It is time to create that ground in a way that heeds mutual sensitivities. Let’s build a common life by abandoning narrow-minded approaches and act with patience to carve this path, which is a historic opportunity,” he said.
Later on Tuesday, Kurtulmuş was scheduled to visit other parties in Parliament, including the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
The new law will be temporary in nature and will clearly define the fate of PKK members, according to media reports. The law will also exclude Öcalan and other PKK members who were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, though it may offer leniency to other members of the terrorist group. The law will only be implemented after Turkish authorities confirm that the PKK has been fully dissolved and has abandoned its arms.
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) sources told the Sabah newspaper last month that the law’s rationale was to offer its benefits to members of the group only after they dissolved the organization and Türkiye was able to confirm this. The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are authorized to confirm the disarmament, but the National Security Council (NSC) will have the final say on the matter. Sources say the confirmation will be announced only after the disarmament process reaches around 80%.
It is unclear how long the law will remain in force, but a period of six months to one year is being considered. It will definitely exclude Öcalan, who was sentenced to death on June 29, 1999, on charges of treason, before his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Any leniency in the prison terms of Öcalan and other PKK members convicted of acts of terrorism will be out of the question. Those convicted of grave acts of terrorism and currently at large abroad will also be excluded from the law.
The law does not grant amnesty to PKK members, and it will only annul terrorism charges for those imprisoned on charges of PKK membership and those who face prosecution for similar charges. This means early release from prison for some convicts or a significant reduction in their sentences. In most terrorism cases, suspects face a wide variety of charges in addition to those related to acts defined as terrorism under Turkish law. For instance, a convict involved in a bombing would only serve a sentence for manslaughter instead of terrorism. Currently, Türkiye has 4,300 people convicted of terrorism in its prisons. The case of each inmate will be reexamined by the courts once the law is implemented.
For PKK members residing abroad without any criminal record in Türkiye, the country plans to allow their return, although they will be subject to judicial supervision.
PKK’s senior cadres, who are currently hiding in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq, will also be excluded from the law, while sources say they have already left their hideouts for several other destinations. Sources also say it is believed that the majority of PKK members would not return to Türkiye even if the law is implemented and would instead prefer to settle in Iraq, where they have spent years.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced on Tuesday that Türkiye has been admitted to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a dialogue partner.
Fidan noted that only 11 countries had previously been granted this status by the bloc. The decision to accept Türkiye was taken in Manila, the Philippines, during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. The three-day meeting opened on Tuesday with a focus on the U.S.-Israel-Iran war.
“Under the leadership of our esteemed President, we have achieved another significant milestone in our foreign policy, which is capable of taking a multidimensional view of the world and global developments while influencing the international agenda and the global system. This places Türkiye in the highest status within ASEAN after full membership. Following our application in 2024, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my fellow foreign ministers who supported our bid throughout the process, as well as to the Philippines, the current ASEAN chair, and the ASEAN Secretariat,” Fidan said in a social media post.
“This development is of great importance in enhancing our influence in the Asia-Pacific, the eastern pillar of our global diplomacy, advancing our long-term strategy toward the ASEAN region, and bringing our existing initiatives to fruition. Since laying the foundation of our institutional relations with ASEAN in 2010, we have expanded cooperation with ASEAN member states across all fields and increased our bilateral trade volume from $6.5 billion to $16 billion. With Dialogue Partner status, we believe our political and economic cooperation with the ASEAN region, home to nearly 700 million people and an economy worth more than $4 trillion, will deepen even further. I hope this new chapter will be beneficial for both our country and the ASEAN member states,” he added.
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CHP corruption case in Ankara reaches Eyüpsultan, 3 detained
An information brochure was prepared for the voluntary return of Syrians under temporary protection.
Meta employees’ lawsuit exposes difficulty proving AI bias in layoffs
CHP corruption case in Ankara reaches Eyüpsultan, 3 detained
An information brochure was prepared for the voluntary return of Syrians under temporary protection.
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